Search Results for 'Ollie Jennings'

There is nothing as innocent as the process of passion that drags you on the path to whatever you choose to do in life. The excitement of eking out a wage, of convincing yourself that people will want to consume what you produce is common across all occupations.

Controversial Scottish agitprop theatre troupe 7:84 visited Galway in 1974 and left a lasting impression on the city and its nascent arts scene.

A brand new exhibition, ‘This is the Modern World’ has just opened at Galway City Museum, featuring a wide selection of live music posters promoting gigs in Galway during the period 1977 – 1982.

Prior to 1961, public performance of Irish traditional music in Galway took place primarily in the form of céilís in large dancehalls — namely in the Hangar, the Commercial and the Astaire. These were enormously popular — remember the hundreds of bicycles parked outside the Hangar on a Sunday night — but they began to go out of fashion in the sixties and were regarded as old fashioned and backward.

It seems laughable today but in 1958 Archbishop John Mc Quaid of Dublin, obsessively monitored Irish life to the extent, that he did not have to ban a film, book or play outright, it was sufficient for his secretary to make it known that the archbishop had wondered if that (name of film, book or movie) was the sort of thing a good Catholic should witness.

AT EVERY arts event in the city he would be there, the jolly man with the glasses and the long hair, a smile and good company, enthusiastic for what he, and we, were about to see that night, be it theatre, music, literature, visual arts - and he usually had an important role in supporting it.

James Harrold, who has served Galway for more than 30 years as the city arts officer with the Galway City Council, will stand down from the position on July 16.

IT IS, as Stephen Fry noted at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, “a very dark time for the performing arts”, and just as venues re-opened and shows were taking place once more - albeit on a small scale - Galway stands on the brink of a county wide lockdown.

This month way back in the mists of time in the 1980s, I found myself starting college here in Galway. Sharing the joys of life with a group of lads in a house in Renmore Crescent, by the side of Lough Atalia (found through the pages of the Galway Advertiser). It was to be the start of the rest of my life; a new beginning, a time when you set aside that which had got you that far, and swapped it for something new.

MARY MCPARTLAN, the musician, promoter, musical director, theatre-maker, academic, and broadcaster, rightly described by Uachtarán na hÉireann, Michael D Higgins, as "one of the greatest traditional singers of her generation", died this week following a battle with cancer.